Benoit d\' Aniane

Origin

In the beginning, Benoît was called Witiza, wire of a Languedocien aristocrat Visigoth, Aigulphe, Count of Maguelonne. Its education is made at the court of Pépin the Brief, where it becomes wine waiter of the Queen, then with that of Charlemagne. A few years later, towards 773, it takes part with Charlemagne in forwarding against Lombards in Italy. It is intended for a brilliant military career.

Monastic life

However, in 774, following a dramatic event while wanting to save his brother of a drowning, it makes monastic profession in a monastery with the Saint-Seine close to Dijon, preferring the bore-hole with the Cote of mesh. There, he studies the many rules of use (rules of saint Pacôme and holy Basile but also the Règle of saint Colomban). Elected official abbot of this monastery, it takes as a starting point the Eastern Fathers and the Irishmen and applies a very rigorous asceticism. However in spite of its efforts it does not manage to bring back his brothers to more strict a life mode, than it finds too much much slackened.

He carries out then a life of Anachorète, with Aniane meadows of Montpellier. He bases an abbey in 782, on the edges of the Aniane, in Languedoc, with disciples, and chooses like model the Cénobitisme.

The rise of the rule bénédictine

Aniane knew thanks to its abbot, a success and a considerable rise. It obtained Charlemagne letters of immunities and the recognition of the freedom of election of the abbot. The development however is slowed down by the rigor required. Benoit turns then to the rule of Saint Benoit de Nursie, which he wants to make apply in a strict sense. He modified and supplemented this rule with that of Colomban. He wrote the “harmony of the rules”, being based on his comments of the rule of saint Benoît de Nursie. More than three hundred monks trained in this monastery scattered in all the empire to spread the rule bénédictine, to reform the old abbeys and to found news of them.

In 792, the abbey becomes royal, and consequently a center of radiation from where Benoît seeks to impose the benedictism in Aquitaine. The Languedoc, the Auvergne, the Burgundy will adapt to it. The new rule strongly interests Louis the Piles, which seeks to impose the religious unit of the Empire to constitute a framework with its territory. It calls Benoît with Inden, close to Aachen. Over there, Benoît prepares three Synode S treating of the reform of the monachism in 816, 817 and 818 -19. They impose Saint-Beno4it cheese the rule, the free-election of the abbot. Missi monastici take care of the application of the decisions. Benoit wants to integrate the abbey in the institutions of the Empire, just like Louis the Piles. The Abbé becomes a true chief of community.

Supported by Louis the Piles, the abbot of Saint Martin's day de Tours and the bishop of Orleans, Benoît will make apply with much intelligence the rule bénédictine in more than twenty monasteries in Aquitaine, of which mainly Gellone, Saint-Savin and Massay. The south of the Loire also gradually will benefit little by little from this reform.

The work of Benoit is not only one work of unification. He fights against the Adoptianisme, diffuses the romano-franque Liturgie, and the tiny writing . The changes brought are diffused very quickly in Saxony and Italy dice 820 - 830. The benedictism will be essential in Europe, to end up creating Cluny. However, in this single rule will create specific traditions to each abbey.

Become, emperor, Louis the Piles, will hasten to install Benoît d' Aniane, who is his friend and his adviser, in a monastery which it has just founded with his intention with Inden, near of the imperial palace (with ten kilometers of Aachen) to put it at the head of all the monks of his empire.

After Aquitaine and Gothie, it is with the tower of Francie to profit from the rule of the hello. In 817, Louis the Piles will bring together in Aix all the abbots of the Empire to make accept the capitulum monasticum, prepared by Benoît. The goal of this constitution will be to regulate and especially to unify the life of the monks and the moniales in true community for better structuring the ecclesiastical company, which with the task to frame and guide the laic world. Holy Augustin and Benoît de Nursie are at that time the best references to put itself in rule with God.

The emperor who is in triad with this movement of purification proclaims of it the application in all the kingdom. Thus, the cultural policy set up by Charlemagne finds it here all the width of a brilliant artistic rebirth in all the monasteries, become of the hearths of intense mental activity.

Benoit d' Aniane and adoptianism

Benoit d' Aniane was particularly also distinguished in the fight against the Adoptianisme, regarded as a heresy by the church. Propagated by Felix d' Urgel, bishop of Urgell in Spain and Elipand archbishop of Tolède, this religion regards the Christ God by nature but as man by adoption of God as wire.

As Elipand was on a territory pertaining to the Moors, peace was relative for him, but on the other hand Felix d' Urgel, it, were obliged to retract into 792 by the judgment of Ratisbon. According to the council of Frankfurt, Adoptianisme was rejected into 794. It is not known if Benoit d' Aniane attended the council but in any case it were helped in this combat by Alcuin and Nebridius (abbot of Lagrasse until 800 then archbishop of Narbonne until 828) his/her two friends. Charlemagne in 799 entrusted a mission to Benoît accompanied by Nebridius and Leyrade archbishop of Lyon to go in the steps of Spain to put an end to the adoptianism.

Works

Codex regularum , Paris, 1663
Concordantia regularum , 1638.

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